By James Ballentine, ABA’s executive vice president of congressional relations and political affairs

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“ABA applauds Sens. Perdue and McCaskill for introducing the Systemic Risk Designation Improvement Act. This bipartisan legislation recognizes that arbitrary size thresholds are needlessly burdensome, increase costs and reduce products and services available to bank customers. The most effective and value-added supervision system is one that is tailored and takes into account a broader view of bank characteristics, including asset size, business model and risk profile. Both Federal Reserve regulators and former Congressman and Dodd-Frank architect Barney Frank have made it clear that the current asset threshold approach needs to be changed.

“While we are encouraged by recent comments from regulators acknowledging the need for more tailored regulation, Congress has an important role in driving this change. This commonsense legislation takes an important step toward reforming our financial regulatory system, and we look forward to working with lawmakers to move it forward.”

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The American Bankers Association is the voice of the nation’s $17 trillion banking industry, which is composed of small, regional and large banks that together employ more than 2 million people, safeguard $13 trillion in deposits and extend more than $9 trillion in loans.